Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Anarchism, Cons and Cons

As we were tying ourselves into knots yesterday over how to
finish the series on standards, we got a question about anarchy.Not the bomb-throwing kind, or the type that
the teachers’ unions claim predominates among home schoolers, excuse us, hum
skooolors, but the presumably ethical kind espoused by, e.g., Dorothy Day.As our
correspondent opined,

“I’m a little
bit confused as to why Lew Rockwell dot com would be so concerned about Dorothy
Day being an anarchist. I’ve often thought Lew Rockwell tended towards anarchy
although I suppose not so much in word as in deed.

It’s not hard to be confused, especially these days. Our impression (and it’s only that, we’re too
lazy to do the research right now) is that there is a problem with definition. Depending on who’s talking, anarchism is
either the same as libertarianism, or its opposite. Sometimes it’s just the word; we have seen
neo-distributists rave (in a good way) over anarchism because Day called
herself an anarchist, and then spew vitriol against libertarians . . . all the
while using effectively the same definition for both terms.

We think that libertarians who know what they are talking about define
libertarianism as individuals having the maximum exercise of rights, but
without recognizing more than the individualistic minimum of social duties, e.g., don't steal, murder, etc. They tend to reject the concept of the common
good and social virtue, especially social justice.

Anarchism (Socialist View)

Paradoxically, Day’s type of anarchy seems to have confined itself to disobedience
of laws with which she disagreed — one aspect of anarchy being you choose which
laws to obey and when to obey them.This
effectively nullifies all law as law, and is directly contrary to Catholic
social teaching as well as any stable social order.

Day’s anarchy was true anarchy, but not complete or
consistent, if that makes sense. Consistent
or complete anarchy on Day’s part would have meant no recognition of social
justice or the common good, yet she made constant appeals to them, e.g., her declaration that “anarchy is
personalist before it is communitarian.”

This, too, is confusing. True anarchy is neither personalist nor
communitarian.A “person” is that which
has rights, and requires an other or others — society — against whom rights are
exercised: a right is defined as the power to do, or not do, some act or acts
in relation to others.Did Robinson
Caruso have rights?Yes.Did he exercise them?Not until Friday showed up . . . whereupon
Caruso’s first exercise of his rights was to deprive Friday of his rights by enslaving him. . . .

Anarchism (Just Third Way View)

And then there’s the fact that anarchy is not communitarian,
but absence of community.It rejects the
invisible structures that define a particular community and necessarily bind
those in the community, i.e., laws,
customs, traditions, and so on.

In our opinion, we think Day’s rather confused notion of anarchy was a paradoxical
collectivist version with contradictory add-ons, in contrast to the usual
individualistic version. This agrees
with Mortimer Adler's analysis that the liberals and conservatives (or the
modernists and the traditionalists, if you prefer) are both making the same
basic mistake, but taking it in different directions.

That’s why, in our opinion, a casual observer might not tend to see any
significant difference between, e.g.,
Dorothy Day, anarchist, and Lew Rockwell, libertarian. There are differences, but they’re not what
either side thinks they are, and neither of the sides realizes where they are
in fundamental agreement.